


Hearthkeeper

by ealianarrain



Series: Tales of Arlise [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: And then this happened, F/M, I DIDN'T EVEN PLAY AS LAVELLAN GUYS, help I tripped and fell into the solavellan tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:25:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4707533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ealianarrain/pseuds/ealianarrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solas/Lavellan Arlathan reincarnation AU! IDEK guys I watched the trailer for the Trespasser DLC, fell into the Solavellan tag, and then this happened. I'm still deciding where - if anywhere - I'll take it, but I liked the aesops fable style sections and thought I'd throw them up for anyone who might be interested. This would be a prologue style piece if it do take it further.<br/>_____________________________________________________________<br/><i>"Impressed by her skill, Sylaise cast off her disguise and blessed her newest acolyte with her vallaslin – and with a new name, more suited than the wild name of her youth. She was called Arlise, the ‘home of fire’, beloved disciple, and from her name we take the word arlise’amelan or ‘hearthkeeper’ for the devotees of Sylaise who still choose the way of the Vir Atish’an and tend our fires, ease the passages of our births and our deaths." <i></i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearthkeeper

_Long years ago, in the spires of many-towered Arlathan, lived an ashalan born of two hunters who dedicated themselves to the Vir Tanadahl and the service of Andruil. They raised their many children in their image, taught them to be swift and deadly as Andruil’s beloved hawks – but this young ashalan eschewed the Vir Tanadahl and sought instead the Vir Atish’an. While her siblings ran fleet-footed and wild through the ancient forests, she sought the temples of Andruil’s sister, Sylaise, and the teachings of her priests. She was a good and dutiful scholar, respectful of her ha’hren and eager to learn, and with time Sylaise took notice of the ashen-haired ashalan who sang her songs with such care and dedication, who tended the fire and the hearth with skilled hands. She took the guise of a ha’hren within the temple, and spoke with the young disciple, who was fast approaching the time of her vallaslin._

_‘Ashalan.’  she called. ‘Tend the fires with me, for I would speak with you. Why do you not run the forests with your wing-footed siblings?’_

_‘I am not called to the way of the Vir Tanadahl, hahren.’ she replied. ‘I seek instead the craft of Vir Atish’an and the teachings of Sylaise. My eldest sister died for want of tending when her da’len came into the world, and I could not ease either passage with the arrows and blades of my parents way.’_

_‘It is almost time for you to receive your vallaslin, ashalan. Will you eschew the marks of your parents and siblings, despite the pain it might cause them?’_

_‘I shall. I shall take the vallaslin of Sylaise, and spare them the pain of losing any more of their children to the shemlen death. My parents have dedicated many children to the service of Andruil and I am but a small ashalan who has not the sight of the hawk or the teeth of the wolf. They will understand.’_

_Touched by the young disciples unwavering fire, Sylaise called for her to be put immediately through the tests of her priesthood, and the young ashalan excelled at each, for she was measured in action and quick in thought. Impressed by her skill, Sylaise cast off her disguise and blessed her newest acolyte with her vallaslin – and with a new name, more suited than the wild name of her youth. She was called Arlise, the ‘home of fire’, beloved disciple, and from her name we take the word arlise’amelan or ‘hearthkeeper’ for the devotees of Sylaise who still choose the way of the Vir Atish’an and tend our fires, ease the passages of our births and our deaths._

_Arlise would grow to be a wise and powerful asha, learned in many secret arts which have now been lost to time – and many of our stories tell of her adventures. But it grows late da’len and you should be abed. Say your prayers and close your eyes, and I shall sing you a lullaby._

 

*

Arla’s aravel was first and foremost, a functional shrine to the arts of a healer and midwife. Bunches of herbs hung strung from the rafters, scenting the air, and a large, comfortable chair was drawn up in one corner for the times when the single, narrow bed was occupied by a patient or expectant mother. The long shelf that served as table and workbench was neatly organised, tools laid out within reach, and near every object served some practical purpose.

Still, she tried to make it a home. The hearth was kept swept clean and decorated with carvings and delicate amulets of brass twisted into the shapes of vines and flowers. In the long winter evenings, she would set up the collapsible loom Daryn had built for her after her father’s death, and she would spin away the hours away weaving brightly coloured throws and rugs, both for herself and the clan and to be traded when they met others. Her walls were painted in cheerful colours and forest murals, fanciful representations of the stories of Arlathan, crystal spires twined amongst the treetops.

The clan, like all Dalish, had no home to call their own. They moved from place to place, never staying long for fear of rousing the wrath of the humans. But, tucked away inside her aravel with the rain drumming on the rounded walls, Arla felt like she had managed, a little, to create a home to take with her.

‘You’re like one of those shelled creatures.’ Daryn observed, helping her drag a heavy earthenware pot up the steps and into a corner where it would catch the sun from her narrow windows and hopefully allow her to grow fresh elfroot. ‘Carrying your home on your back.’

‘Did you just call me a snail?’ Arla said incredously, and chased him back to his long-suffering wife with a broom.

‘Arla!’ the Keeper called, and she cast a longing look back over her shoulder at the empty pot even as she set the broom aside and wound her hair into a twist at the nape of her neck, rolling up her sleeves. Deshanna was bent over a pregnant halla, frowning as he spread his hands over her swollen belly, and the poor creature was bleating in distress, pawing at the ground.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, holding out her hands to the doe. ‘Oh Druathe, is your baby causing problems? Let me see _falon_.’

‘I think her calf may be the wrong way in the womb.’ Deshanna said, moving aside. ‘But you’re better at these things than I.’

‘Well, I need to be better at _something_ than you.’ Arla replied, teasing gently, even as she eased Druathe down onto the thick grass by the river side and knelt, pressing gently at the doe's belly. ‘Ah, yes, you’re right. Could you fetch my - ’

He was gone, heading for her aravel, and Arla turned her attention back to the hart, crooning the soothings under her breath as she stroked her hands over the long, intelligent face and arched neck. Druathe relaxed slowly, dark eyes slipping closed, and by the time Deshanna returned with her kit, she had begun the arduous process of turning the calf in the womb.

‘This will be a long night.’ she predicted.

 

It was. In the morning, Deshanna had to help her stumble back to her aravel, leaning heavily on his shoulder, her eyes heavy with tiredness and mana-drain, but the aching muscles and pounding head were well worth it to see Druathe grazing peacefully with the herd, her little calf on wobbly legs at her side.

‘Well done _da’len_.’ Deshanna praised as he heated the basin of water for her to wash herself down and laid out a clean shift for her, turning down the blankets on her bed. ‘You have proven yourself a skilled _arlise’amelan,_ these last few years. The other Keepers wish they had so dedicated a First.’

‘Flattery will get you everywhere – once I wake up enough to remember what you just said.’ Arla said, swaying at the entrance to the aravel. Deshanna hauled her inside properly and pushed her gently over to the basin.

‘Wash up and go to bed.’ he ordered. ‘I’ll send a meal later. Go on now, you’ve earned the rest.’

Arla sighed, but did as she was told, too bone-tired to think of disobeying, but too well-trained to fall into bed without first washing herself clean of the gore and fluid associated with birth, tossing the dirty cloths and her clothes into the pail to be washed later and emptying out the basin in the grass by the aravel. She slipped into the shift, a comfortable woollen piece of deep forest green that brushed the floor as she walked, and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, sitting in her chair to drink the tea that would stave off her impending headache.

This was her first mistake. When Deshanna returned an hour later bearing a hearty meal for the exhausted mage, he found her still there, the wooden cup fallen to the floor from her lax, dangling hand, curled in the chair, her eyes moving beneath her lids as she wandered the fade. Her lips shaped a word, soft, fingers flexing as if in her dreams she trailed them across the face of a lover, her expression agonised even with her lashes dipped low and hiding her eyes, a pale sweep on her freckled cheek.

‘Still these dreams, _da’len_?’ Deshanna sighed, and settled cross-legged on the bed to bow his head over his ledger, one watchful eye on his apprentice.

*

_All Dalish children are told the Tales of Arlise, moralistic stories in which the ashen-haired acolyte outwits her opponents through cunning and craft. Often in these tales she is pitted against the Fen-harel, the Dread Wolf, and through them parents strive to teach their children how to best him should he catch their scent._

_So much has been forgotten. So much is mistold. The truth is wrapped in layers and layers of lost history, confusion, unintentional misdirection. None know remember the truth._

_Arlise, once called Fenlin, was the daughter of two slaves owned by an Arlathan noble who marked his slaves in tribute to his personal goddess, Andruil. Fenlin was a wilful and determined child, with no skill in the hunt, and was sold by her master to a priest in the service of Sylaise. Some say she manipulated her master to make it so, I cannot speak to the truth of this._

_It is true, that she caught the attention of Sylaise, and in time became her favoured priestess. Her slave-markings – that which the Dalish now call vallaslin – were altered to reflect her new ownership, to mark her as claimed and untouchable – much to the chagrin of Andruil, as Fenlin developed into a powerful mage under Sylaise’s teachings and her new name._

_Arlise. The home of the fire, the first of the arlise’amelan, the Hearthkeeper. **Arlise**._

_She did encounter Fen'harel. Many, many times. But the Dalish are wrong when they say they were enemies, the Hearthkeeper and the Dread Wolf, the sanctuary and the wild. They were opposites in all ways, but never enemies._

_Never that._

\- Carvings found at the base of a statue of Fen’Harel, author unknown.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, yay or nay gentle readers? 
> 
> All elvish credit to Fenxshiral's Elvhen lexicon, http://archiveofourown.org/works/3719848/chapters/8239723 - you all need to see this it's amazing and I may have spent an hour picking out all the dirty words for a smutfic that's percolating at the back of my brain.  
> Some translations:
> 
> Ashalan - daughter  
> Vir Tanadahl - Way of the Three trees  
> Vir Atish'an - The Way of Peace  
> Hahren - elder


End file.
